


Broken Bug (Mushi-Shi)

by DavidBrookesUK



Category: Mushishi
Genre: Illnesses, Japan, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Mushi (Mushishi), Secret Relationship, Spirit World, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28853979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DavidBrookesUK/pseuds/DavidBrookesUK
Summary: Ginko, on his travels, encounters a rare mushi that is driving a married couple mad with pain. He administers an unusual treatment, but uncovers more than he'd like to about their secret past.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Broken Bug (Mushi-Shi)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone. This is a complete story at 4,000 words.
> 
> "Broken Bug" caters a little to newcomers to Mushi-Shi, so if you're already a fan please excuse the brief explanations/reminders of the world of Mushi-Shi in the opening scene. The writing and dialogue style is intended to mimic that of the original Manga series written by Yuki Urushibara.
> 
> I'd love to take any feedback you have on the story!
> 
> This will probably be my only fanfic, written as part of a writing challenge in 2010, but if you'd like to read more of my fiction then please check out my website (see profile)! Thanks!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

One can always tell when a person has never laid eyes on a mushi before. Their eyes pop out like boiled eggs, the lips part slowly.

The boy reached up to touch Ginko’s hand, around which the mushi were swarming. ‘What are they?’

‘Mushi?’ Ginko had answered this question so many times that he had the answer down to a fine art. ‘Mushi are tiny creatures born in the light flow that runs like a river through the world. They’re everywhere. They touch us in ways you wouldn’t believe. Only a rare few people can see them, Tôgo. You’re special.’

‘Am I?’ Tôgo’s eyes boggled at the glowing worm-like mushi twirling around each other on the air currents of the hut.

Ginko nodded. ‘You could be a mushishi.’

‘What’s—’

‘They are the mushi masters, who use their knowledge of mushi to help other people who are affected by them. Mushi are far too pure to ever be burdened with good or bad intentions. Mushi just are. But when people are inconvenienced by them, or become ill, or act strangely … then hopefully a mushishi is nearby to help.’

‘Oh.’

‘…What?’

‘Why do you cover your eye with that funny white hair of yours?’ Tôgo asked innocently.

Ginko closed his box with a snap. ‘Well! You’re all better, at least. Now that we got those mushi out from under your eyelids, you should really be able to see again.’

‘Better than before. I can see the glowing mushi now!’

‘You can see their light, but it might be years before you can actually see them. All squiggling and wriggling and writhing through the air, like little bugs! In the air and trees, the water and the earth, and through the currents of the light flow…’

Ginko said this knowing that it might be true, since a mushi had lived in the boy’s eyes for so long. It had made him almost blind, stealing the light that he needed to see, but now its scales would probably give him better vision than anyone in his family.

Yet Ginko would not tell him why this particular mushishi had pure white hair instead of black, and a single green eye with the other, empty socket obscured by his fringe. Better to give him one of his cigarettes and teach him to smoke than scare him with that story.

He closed all the drawers in his box and adjusted the straps. He carried all of his supplies on his back in a wooden box cut into sixteen little drawers. It looked like it might be about to snow – the clouds were piling up against the side of the mountain, turning grey and ominous-looking – and he had to protect the tools of his trade.

‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he told the boy, and set off back down the village track, towards the forest.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He’d made it about fifty yards and only just buttoned up his long coat over his sweater when the next villager came running up to him. The old man clattered to a halt in the gravel on his wooden getas. He panted, ‘Wait! Mushishi-san, you’re not leaving?’

‘I’ve already stayed here too long. I need to keep moving.’

It was true, but this fellow was clearly frantic – he didn’t need to know about Ginko’s special affinity with mushi, which led to them converging on any location he lingered in for too long.

‘It’s Katashi, my neighbour,’ said the man. ‘He promised me he would see you today before you set off on your way, but he hasn’t left the house … All month he’s been wailing to himself and beating his own head. I swear that he’s possessed! Maybe one of your … uh—’

‘Mushi?’

‘Maybe it’s one of your mishies all in his brain making him wail like that?’

Ginko shrugged. Anything was possible with the ubiquitous mushi, the spirits of life itself.

He lit up another cigarette and nodded. ‘Lead the way, old man.’

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The old man led Ginko to his house. The afflicted man lived with his wife in the next house over, on the other side of a trickling stream. Bamboo shoots were sprouting against the wall of the little wooden dwelling, and Ginko could see frogs jumping across the wet stones by the porch.

‘You can hear him shouting all the way from the other side of the stream?’

‘Yes! Sometimes I swear that Katashi wants to kill himself, but his wife says no … He has some kind of problem that only a doctor, or maybe a mushi master, can help with.’

Ginko adjusted the straps on his box. ‘I’ll do my best. Leave it with me.’

The old man went inside, kicking off his wooden sandals before closing the sliding door behind him. On the other side of the stream, Ginko watched Katashi’s house with his cigarette burning in the low light. It was nearly night-time. Ginko’s stomach whined and rumbled.

‘If you’re hungry, you’d better come inside,’ said a nearby voice, startling him.

He turned around. It was a young woman carrying flowers across her arm. Her long black hair looked tousled, as though she’d been scrambling through the forest to collect the bouquet.

‘You’re Katashi’s wife?’ Ginko asked, feeling his heart settle back into his chest.

The young woman paused, then nodded. She lowered her head and shuffled past Ginko in her narrow kimono. The bow of her wide obi belt bobbed up and down, unstarched, as she hurried up the steps towards the house.

‘Come,’ she called back quietly, not looking him in the eye. ‘He really needs your help.’

Inside, Ginko found a tight maze of sliding paper screens. He had never seen a house so cluttered and badly organised. It seemed as though it had been designed by a man as thin as tissue himself, who never had to worry about putting his elbow through a paper door by accident.

‘Forgive me,’ said Ginko. ‘Why is it so tight in here?’

‘This little house was built by Katashi’s rich father. It was meant to be a play house for our son, but … a child never came. We spent all our money on doctors for medicine that could help me conceive, but they never worked, and we had to sell our house and move into this tiny place. I never had the heart to pull out all these play screens and redecorate. But you don’t want to hear all this! You must be starved!’

Ginko didn’t deny it. One of the problems with being on the move all the time was that you were never quite sure where your next meal was going to come from. He sat on the tatami mat by the low table and stared greedily at the steaming bowls that were soon placed in front of him.

‘My husband will be with us shortly. He has been sitting in the darkness so long so that his eyes take a while to adjust.’

‘He’s sick?’

‘We’ll explain everything when he comes through,’ she promised.

When Katashi finally showed, the food had almost gone cold. Ginko was too polite to start without him, but as soon as the master of the house sat down Ginko picked up each bowl in turn and shovelled the bland contents into his mouth with the polished chopsticks he carried, then washed it all down with a second helping of miso soup.

‘I am glad that you have a hearty appetite,’ said Katashi, very quietly. His eyes were so narrow that they were almost closed. ‘A guest in my home may have as much as he pleases.’

‘Especially a guest that is also a mushishi, right?’ Ginko prodded.

Katashi nodded. ‘You have tobacco in your hand. You may smoke if you wish.’

‘Oh. Sorry, holding it is just a habit. But I will smoke, thank you. Won’t you tell me about your problem? I’ll see if I can be of use.’

As Ginko rolled his mushi-repelling cigarette, Katashi explained.

There were times when he suffered from terrible headaches, sometimes so painful that the slightest bit of light made it feel as though his head were about to explode, and even the noise of crickets outside made him feel like screaming with agony. The headaches always preceded and followed a certain phenomenon that he couldn’t explain.

‘What phenomenon?’ asked Ginko, the finished cigarette hanging limply from his lower lip.

‘My wife, Hoshiko … She sometimes thinks thoughts so loud that I can hear them in my head. They are like echoes coming to me through a long cave. And at these times, Hoshiko can hear my thoughts, too. It is like we are connected by a powerful link, but the link is screwed into my head by these huge painful bolts!’

‘And Hoshiko, do you get these migraines too?’ asked Ginko.

Hoshiko shook her head.

‘Not at all?’

‘No,’ she said softly.

‘Hmm. Go on, Katashi.’

Katashi shrugged. He winced at every movement. He said, ‘That is all, really. But it is enough that sometimes I want to beat my head until the pain goes away. I keep Hoshiko up with my moaning in my sleep.’

‘The old man across the road said that he sometimes heard you in discomfort.’

‘That is an understatement, Ginko-san. Is it one of those invisible creatures, a mushi?’

‘Possibly.’

Here Ginko stood, and touched his belly with both hands. He was very full and wanted to stretch. But also he wanted to pull his notebook out of his trouser pocket. It was a tiny book full of all his sketches. He took off the band and flicked through the pages until he found the right set of notes.

‘This picture here is of a mushi called Togirehasamimushi.’

‘What?’

‘We call him Togire-hasami. He is like an earwig that burrows into your ear. From in there he listens to your thoughts, which keep him alive … But otherwise he doesn’t harm you.’

‘Then it’s not the right mushi!’ said Katashi, looking strained.

‘Take it easy. I haven’t finished. Sometimes a Togire-hasami picks up on the thoughts of other people who are nearby. And sometimes if the same person is nearby very often – like a man’s wife – he will get curious. This happens a lot when husband and wife are in bed next to each other, dreaming their dreams. He wants so badly to listen to both sets of thoughts that he breaks into two … and one side stays with the husband, the other side goes to the wife.’

‘That … That’s disgusting!’ Hoshiko gasped.

Ginko shrugged. ‘That’s just nature. But the Togire-hasami is strong enough to transmit energy between his two halves, no matter how far apart the husband and wife are. Sometimes he creates a kind of telepathic link between them. Have you ever thought, “I haven’t written to my brother in a long time. I’ll write him a letter tomorrow.” And the next morning—’

‘—A letter arrives from your brother?’ Katashi finished. ‘Yes, I know what you mean. Then that comes from Togire-hasami?’

‘Yes. How long have you and Hoshiko been married?’

Hoshiko looked at Katashi. Katashi said, ‘We got married in the Spring.’

‘In the Spring?’ Ginko touched his chin. ‘Well, usually it would take a lot longer than a few months…’

‘What is it? Are you saying we have your earwig mushi?’

Ginko nodded. ‘Yes. I believe that you and your wife have half a Togire-hasami in each of you, and for some reason this is causing you, Katashi, headaches. Maybe the half that is inside you is dying, or poisoned.’

Hoshiko eeked. ‘I don’t want an ear-bug inside me!’

‘Don’t worry, I can get it out with a simple ritual. Do you have a candle? And a wooden spoon?’

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ten minutes later, the sun had finally set. The crickets were singing their chorus outside, and frogs chirped sedately by the babbling steam.

For Katashi this was agony. He wriggled about on the floor where lay, next to Hoshiko.

‘Stay still,’ Ginko muttered. Another cigarette sent up smoke from between his fingers as he unspooled what looked like a length of cotton from one of his drawers.

‘Please can you explain what are you doing?’ asked Katashi. ‘Will this hurt?’

‘Only a little. This string is silk from a special mushi that lives in a swamp on the other side of the mountain, near to where I was born.’

‘Are there other people there with green eyes and white hair?’ asked Hoshiko.

Ginko ignored her. ‘The silk splits into two strands, like so … and with them joined at the top, I put one end in your ear, Hoshiko—’

‘Oh! It tickles.’

‘…And the other in yours, Katashi. The candle wax I hold above it, here, will melt and drip down the silk. It will go into your ears and burn a little, but it will drive the mushi out or kill it. After that, you’ll be perfectly fine.’

‘If you can get it out,’ Katashi murmured, with his eyes squeezed closed, ‘you may stay here over the winter. You can eat and smoke all you like.’

‘Let’s see if it works, first,’ Ginko said under his breath, and he watched the hot wax drip down the silken line.

It moved as expected. At the place where the silk split into dual strands, the beads of melted wax travelled in both directions and down into the couple’s ears. They groaned in discomfort as the hot wax filled their ear canals, then dribbled out.

After a few minutes, Ginko asked them to sit up and scoop out any remaining wax. ‘Alright?’

‘I don’t feel any different,’ said Hoshiko.

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘But I don’t, either,’ said Katashi – and then suddenly bent over double with a scream, and clapped his palms to his ears, falling over sideways onto the floor.

‘What’s the matter with him?’ Hoshiko shrieked. ‘What have you done to him?’

‘The mushi should drop out without hurting him,’ Ginko said, alarmed and jumping to his feet. ‘This shouldn’t happen unless…’

He broke off.

‘Unless what!?

Ginko paused. His cigarette burnt up to his lips and he spat it out angrily. After stamping it out, an inch from Katashi’s distorted, pain-crumpled face, he whirled on Hoshiko and snapped, ‘When he stops screaming, send him outside!’

And he stormed out of the little house, accidentally putting his elbow through one of the tight paper screens.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ginko and Katashi sat in the darkness by the stream, half a mile away from the house. Fireflies dipped and circled over the water, resting here and there on reeds or bamboo stalks, seemingly disappearing into the darkness.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Katashi. ‘It was wrong of me.’

‘I’m a mushi master,’ Ginko replied sternly. He did not look at Katashi, but instead at one of the big white koi moving slowly under the surface of the water. He’d had a funny encounter with a one-eyed fish once, but he didn’t want to think about it. He said, ‘You should know better than to try to deceive somebody like me. I’m a diagnostic – it’s how I make my living. I’m not boasting, just telling you the facts.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Katashi again.

Ginko hurled his fifth cigarette of the evening into the water with a burst of angry energy. ‘Don’t apologise! Tell the truth! Why did you say that Hoshiko was your wife? Why did you ask her to lie to me?’

‘Because … Because I don’t want the village to know about my past! I had another wife once, before Hoshiko and I ever met, five years ago.’

‘Go on.’

‘Her name was Manami. She was beautiful and I loved her very much. We both grew up in the town across the valley and everybody always said that we would get married. Eventually, we did. I think that we only really did it because it was expected of us. Sure, we liked each other, but … Anyway. Our village was only small and I was a carpenter’s son. He had saved a huge amount of money making boats for people on one of the other islands, and trained me up to follow in his giant footsteps. But I could only make small things well, and so I had to travel because the villagers there would only buy so many of my toys and jewellery boxes.’

‘That makes sense,’ said Ginko, calming down a little.

‘So, I travelled around, a little like you. With a giant box on my back, selling my services. Eventually I came here and heard that their only carpenter had just died from a heart attack helping his uncle in the rice paddies. Everybody needed new shoes, and tools that needed fixing, and furniture that could do with being replaced … I decided to stay for a few months. You see, Manami was pregnant with our baby. I had to provide for her.’

‘I understand. But something happened. You met Hoshiko.’

‘We really do love each other,’ Katashi told him, ashamed. He lowered his head and looked at his reflection, and those of the fireflies, in the rippling water. ‘I never told her about Manami. I didn’t want her to know. But eventually I realised that I wanted to stay with Hoshiko instead of going back to Manami and my unborn child. So I asked Hoshiko to marry me, and we did. And, a few months ago, I got a letter from my brother to say that my little boy had been born…’

‘And…? Ginko prompted.

Katashi looked up. ‘And giving birth to him had been too much for Manami. She died calling out my name. And now all that I hear day and night is her voice in my ear, sobbing, and the sound of a little baby crying.’

He buried his head in his hands. ‘Oh, I’m such a terrible person.’

Ginko silently rolled his seventh cigarette.

He didn’t deny it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

‘But why do you have to leave?’ Hoshiko pleaded, holding onto the sleeves of Katashi’s kimono. She stared angrily at Ginko. ‘It’s all his fault, isn’t it? He’s told you some lie about his stupid mushi!’

‘Mushi aren’t stupid,’ Ginko muttered, waiting in the doorway.

‘It’s nothing like that,’ Katashi promised her. He yanked his arm from her clawing hands. ‘I have something that I need to do. This pain will kill me eventually. I’ll come back to you in a week or so and explain everything.’

He pulled his pack over his shoulders, put on his straw hat, and shuffled out the door before Hoshiko could stop him. She cried after him in the street until they were too far away to hear.

‘You could have told her the truth,’ said Ginko, walking beside Katashi. ‘Your lies will be the end of you.’

‘I didn’t lie. I’ll tell her all about Manami and my son. But if I don’t do this now, you said that the mushi could kill me and my little boy.’

‘I don’t know for sure. I know that it shouldn’t be causing you pain like this. And once one of the two people dies, the connection should be severed. The other half of the mushi dies too, from starvation. There are no thoughts passing back and forth.’

They travelled on in silence. Through the forest, in the dappled light, and the cold mists of the mountain, and by the trickling rivers. All around, Ginko saw the millions of mushi that were native to the land unspoiled by man. But Katashi saw nothing – he couldn’t see mushi, or even what was right in front of his nose. But Ginko could tell that every step of the way, Katashi was paying for his own foolishness.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When they reached Katashi’s hometown three days later, Katashi was hounded by his old neighbours. They wanted to know why he hadn’t come back to see Manami before she died. Why he hadn’t come home to his son. Didn’t he get his brother’s letter? How could he leave his family behind that way?

But Katashi didn’t answer any of their questions. He was now blind with pain from the migraines, and every time he put his foot on the earth it was like a tremor going through his bones. And still he heard the whispering of his dead wife in his mind, and the wailing of his baby boy.

Ginko followed at a distance, but caught up when it was clear that Katashi had arrived at his brother’s hut. The town was clearly poor. It was no wonder that Katashi had been tempted away by the wealth of his new industry, and the relative glamour of girls like Hoshiko.

‘Do you think he will forgive me?’ Katashi asked pitifully, his eyes shut and head held low.

‘You’ll be lucky. But Yoshirō is your brother, and Yūto is your son. They will both forgive you in time.’

Ginko said the words, but he didn’t believe them. Not entirely. He watched Katashi go through the door and into his brother’s house.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There was some fighting, and hot tears of the deepest shame from Katashi’s eyes for many hours, but Ginko could see that his brother was forgiving, and wanted to bring Katashi home. Every man who had ever had a child – Ginko had not – knew that a father belonged with his son, and the other way around. Only in exceptional circumstances did that rule not apply.

So Katashi held his baby for the first time, and tickled his drool-covered chin, and sang his name, Yūto Yūto Yūto, like a song pleading mercy for his many sins. The baby did nothing but cry. He too seemed to be in a lot of pain.

‘It’s like an echo,’ Katashi said, grimacing. ‘I hear him crying in one ear, because he is beside me. But I hear him crying in the other ear, and in my head, because of the mushi connection.’

‘I don’t know how the other half of the Togire-hasami got into your son. It’s not unheard of for mushi to regenerate when they are damaged. Perhaps when your son was in his mother’s womb, her own Togire-hasami grew whole again and split also with Yūto, who was much closer than you were. But this is the only way that you would have a connection to your son – and why it hurts you both so badly. The Togire-hasami remembers being connected to Manami, and hears her thoughts still. It would be painful for anybody, anything … Even a mushi.’

Katashi nodded. He squinted through the lancing pain at the baby he bounced in his arms.

‘Ginko … Will you help me and Yūto? I know that I don’t deserve it, but…’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Ginko. ‘But I don’t want to hear you talk any more.’

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He did the silk. He did the candle. He hoped that the wax would not damage the baby’s hearing, but it seemed to do the trick just fine. The two ends of the bug-like mushi dropped out of Katashi and Yūto both, glowing faintly until they were dead, and then breaking apart like old, crumbly paper.

Yūto stopped crying. Katashi put his hand to his forehead for a long time, screwing up his face, but eventually the pain subsided. He blinked, just like the little boy Tôgo had, as though seeing the world for the first time again.

Katashi’s brother tried to pay Ginko for his help and services. ‘It was only a bit of mushi silk,’ Ginko told him. ‘Hang onto your money with my blessing. Just keep your brother in line … and keep your nephew safe. Guilt can do funny things to a man.’

‘I will,’ said the brother and uncle. ‘And thanks again, Mushishi-san.’

Katashi caught up with him at the bridge that led north, towards Ginko’s next destination.

‘Where will you go?’

‘I just keep moving,’ said Ginko. ‘If I hang around too long, too many mushi gather. That’s not safe.’

‘But won’t you stay a little while? I meant what I said. I’ll feed you until you burst!’

Ginko turned his nose up at Katashi’s good humour. ‘You know, mushi aren’t good or evil. They don’t know any better. Like animals, they can’t really understand right from wrong. But human beings do. I’d even argue that a person who can’t understand right from wrong isn’t truly a human being at all. You think about that, Katashi. And take care of your son whilst you do.’

He left Katashi standing on the bridge, with little Yūto gurgling almost happily in his arms. Ginko wished that people were as pure as mushi – he’d wished it many times. But mushi could be killed by hot wax and the flick of a finger. The wickedness in man could not even be extinguished by God.

[END]


End file.
